New IITs to hike intake of students from next year

Bhubaneswar/New Delhi: More engineering aspirants will now be able to realise their dream of studying in the country's premier Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), as the intake capacity in these institutes is likely to be raised by 1000 seats from the next academic year, sources in Human Resource Development (HDR) Ministry said.

According to sources, the IITs will offer admission to 11,998 seats next year - a rise of almost 1000 seats over and above the existing 10,998 seats in various institutions.

The new branches which would increase their seats include IIT Bhubaneswar, Hyderabad, Mandi, Ropar, Indore, Gandhinagar and Jodhpur.

However, significant rise in the number of seats may not be witnessed in older IITs like Delhi, Bombay and Kharagpur.

Sources further added that the premiere institutes would earmark special seats for female candidates from next year.

In 2014, the number of vacant seats in various IITs stood at three; the number rose to 50 in 2015, while it rose further to 96 in 2016. This year, even after seven rounds of counselling, 121 seats lay vacant across 23 IITs.

Subsequently, to sort out the situation, the Ministry has asked all IITs to consider ways including the option of scrapping unpopular courses from the institutes.

A number of IITs hiked their intake by 400 seats in June this year. A new proposal for further increasing the seats will be sent soon by the senate of the new IITs to the Joint Admission Board (JAB), which will then take a decision on the matter.

Earlier this year during a JAB meeting, the Ministry recommended a hike in the seats allotted to women to 14 per cent from the current eight per cent of the total seats in IITs across the country.